I'm intrigued by the idea of a "way to try out/transfer between startups who allow it". Would anyone else be interested in that, if we could broker it between a set of companies?
Along the lines of other comments: Consider creating “YC Engineering, Inc.” Good engineers are concerned with their career path more than comp packages.
One function of YCE could be to enable engineers to swiftly choose projects rather than companies. An ML expert may work on optimizing income for AirBnB hosts for 6 months and then switch to working on a project at Coinbase Prime. Maybe they like Coinbase Prime and migrate to that full time or maybe they want to explore more with ML and switch to optimizing Cruise routes.
This would also be useful for startups since “fire fast” is a challenge for some. It would seem easier for founders just to tell you “this person isn’t working out: they may be better suited for a more mature YC company.” At that point you could pull that employee and have them placed at a better suited company.
Lastly I think it is a good opportunity for educating engineers. If a good engineer is proficient in Python but YC needs a lot of blockchain/financial engineers (e.g. Coinbase’s ridiculous hiring growth) then there could be opportunity to guide that engineer to such a path if they’re interested.
I'm intrigued by the idea of a "way to try out/transfer between startups who allow it". Would anyone else be interested in that, if we could broker it between a set of companies?